• The basis, the corner-stone of this Government, was the perfect equality of the free, sovereign, and independent States which made it.

    Robert Toombs: The basis, the corner-stone of this Government, was the perfect equality of the free, sovereign, and independent States which made it.
    Robert Augustus Toombs (1860). “Speech of Hon. Robert Toombs: On the Crisis. Delivered Before the Georgia Legislature, December 7, 1860”, p.3